Commuting by Bicycle is down?

My commute in San Francisco involves crossing 16 streets. It's not very far, about 2.5 miles.

On Friday I observed 35 cars run red lights--not even "it's yellow and time to speed up because drivers don't give a single flying crap about safety" but literally the cross traffic lane is green.

Cars are a terrible unsustainable mess, ruining the environment and ruining city livability. It's not surprising that the risks they impose on the rest of the world are resulting in less people willing to bike

American cities are so unpleasant to exist in on the ground level people prefer the safety of their smog machines at all times, even if you are going half a mile down the road for a carton of milk.

Everything is designed to funnel you out of the city into your extremely inefficient suburb so you can stop by taco-bell and wal-mart on your 50 minute commute home.

But hey, the answer is more roads right? Not incentivizing people to have less roads on the highway?

My suspicion is that a part of the drop is due to the slow shift away from suburbs. Bike commuting from a suburb can be great (I've been a year-round commuter for over half a decade). However, the exurbs are too far away for bicycles, and inside urban areas you often have lots of other choices for getting to the office.

[1] https://www.stockholmdirekt.se/nyheter/rekordmanga-har-valt-...

Example: Downtown San Francisco is largely inaccessible to cycling from the East Bay as there is no cycle lane on the old part of the Bay Bridge and insufficient capacity on BART and Ferries for large number of bikes.

There certainly are bad drivers, but I don't encounter things other commenters have mentioned, like people yelling. In fact I've noticed better behavior by drivers in the last ten–15 years, like people in cars much more willing to yield when I'm crossing a road from a bikeway.

More recently the city has been adding more protected bike lanes, and is now working on better maintenance in the winter, which is ok now but the biggest downside.

I perceive people behind the wheel to be increasingly reckless, entitled, and disrespectful. A lot of the reasons for this are already mentioned so I won't rehash the issues of distraction by smartphone, "sharing economy" de-professionalization of shared transportation, and driver resentment towards anybody not in a personal automobile claiming their lawful space on the road.

Somebody needs to mention that each and every person who drives a car is contributing to undeniable, irreversible climate destruction, and plausibly a future earth that won't be able to support human prosperity. EVs really are not much better than ICE vehicles - replace some fossil fuel consumption with enormous mineral extraction and it's a toss-up at best.

There are also a lot of (in)equity issues in our current transportation system that need to be sorted out. Cars reinforce the wealth gap by virtually ensuring economic success for those who can afford them while leaving those who can't out in the cold. Eisenhower's "drive" (pun intended) to build the US interstate system adopted and encouraged common, preexisting local policies that carved up any neighborhood where minority communities could begin to take hold, replacing them via eminent domain with freeways for white suburban commuters.

In sum, cars are bad. But they're so deeply seated in the collective USA brain stem that I'm not sure we will be able to do much to improve the situation.

I've been a year round bike commuter, but am fortunate to have worked the same job for 20 years. Likewise for my spouse. But that's pretty rare.

I doubt that I could justify bike commuting on solely practical grounds. I gain a great deal of enjoyment from it, and it's my main source of exercise.

Moving from New York to Seattle, the biking infrastructure there is appalling.

While many US cities have made some efforts to increase cycling, I think they focus too much on new infrastructure and too little on quality infrastructure and enforcement against dangerous drivers.

Just look at illegal parking in the bike lane to know how important cycling is to the city. In Austin, nothing has changed with regards to this in the 5 years I have lived here. The reason is clear to me: the city is happy to give cyclists lip service, but anything that might involve actual effort or possibly making drivers irritated doesn't happen (unless it's new construction).

I have gone through cycling stop sign enforcement efforts twice, once on bike to work day! http://www.kut.org/post/austin-police-ticket-47-campus-area-...

I always stop, and as I recall I got a thumbs up from one cop on bike to work day.

In contrast I have never run into any of the enforcement efforts against drunk or distracted driving. I am confident such things occur, as I have asked the police about it before and they explained their procedures. But I get the impression that drunk and distracted driving are not taken as seriously as they should be. Based on what they said, I should periodically run into the distracted driving enforcement near schools (so they can write double price tickets), but I am still waiting 4 years later.

I also was assaulted by a driver once while riding in a lane marked for bikes. (Physical assault; they did not hit me with their car.) I called the police, who to their credit showed up promptly and took my statement. They didn't do anything else, though. A cop later told me that if I wanted anything to come of this, I'd have to file at municipal court and pay a fee. I talked to a lawyer who said nothing would come of this, even though I have the entire incident on my helmet camera. The city police chief in the past said they take complaints from cyclists at municipal court seriously: https://bicycleaustin.info/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1511

But I am not seeing it. Why would I make what is effectively a $100+ donation to a police department who only cares enough to give me lip service? If they actually wanted to get more cyclists to report bad drivers, they'd reduce or waive the fee for cyclists.

A lot of progress needs to be made in the US to make cycling a better option.

now in Prague with pretty much zero bike lanes and hilly terrain so i don't really bother even trying to bike here, people in general respect rules more, but there are still plenty BMW/audi/Mercedes drivers who think laws are only for poor people

Now I work from home that ratio. When I do go to the office it’s at a much lower % than previously because the habit provides a boost.

I'm getting tired of being a second class citizen on the road, tired of near-misses with people staring at their phones while driving, and tired of not being able to carry much of anything. I have panniers but it doesn't do much good for quick trips to the hardware store or the supermarket on the way home.

(edit: I am in the US)